I'm making my way through this and there's some excellent 'nitty-gritty' John Williams anecdotes. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to know more about the intricacies of the composer/orchestrator relationship than you usually get in interviews.

This is really terrific. Especially for composers working with real musicians. It's like a master class.

Just as a side note- I learned more about music working with Bill Stromberg than I did in three years of music classes in university. Guys like Pope and Stromberg are invaluable resources when it comes to understanding the orchestra.

I love Pope's bit about midi composers. So true. So very true. Love the woodwind comment especially.

I'm going to listen to this again tomorrow because it had so many great nuggets of info. I loved the comments he made about Jerry and also Horner at the end. Conrad knows his stuff. Oh, and hearing about the Godzilla orchestra and why Desplat had such a big ensemble (for the immense divisi possibilities)